Biathlon usually refers specifically to the winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. Another popular variant is summer biathlon, which combines cross-country running with riflery, and also modern biathlon and biathle, which combine running with swimming.
Bobsleigh is a winter sport in which teams make timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sled. The various types of sleds came several years before the first tracks were built in St Moritz, where the original bobsleds were adapted upsized Luge/Skeleton sleds designed by the adventurously wealthy to carry passengers. All three types were adapted from boys delivery sleds and toboggans. Competition naturally followed, and to protect the working class and rich visitors in the streets and byways of St Moritz, hotel owner Caspar Badrutt, owner of the historic Krup Hotel and the later Palace Hotel, built the first familiarly configured 'half-pipe' track circa 1870. It has hosted the sports during two Olympics and is still in use today.
Curling is a team game with similarities to bowls and shuffleboard, played by two teams of four players each on a rectangular sheet of carefully prepared ice. Teams take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones down the ice towards the target (called the house). Two sweepers with brooms accompany each rock and use timing equipment and their best judgment, along with direction from their teammates, to help direct the stones to their resting place. The complex nature of stone placement and shot selection has led some to refer to curling as "chess on ice."
Figure skating is an Olympic sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform spins, jumps, footwork and other intricate and challenging moves on ice. Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level (senior), and at local, national, and international competitions. The International Skating Union (ISU) regulates international figure skating judging and competitions. Figure skating is an official event in the Winter Olympic Games. In languages other than English, figure skating is usually referred to by a name that translates as "artistic skating".
Freestyle skiing is an acrobatic form of technical and aerialskiing. It is organized into a number of different disciplines, although there are no impartial authorities for managing the sport internationally.
Freestyle skiing first began to be taken seriously in the 1960s and early 1970s, when it was often known as "hot-dogging." Bob Burns pioneered this style in Sun Valley, Idaho beginning in 1965.[1] In the late 1960s other followers of the style included Wayne Wong, Roger Evans, John Clendenin, Bob Salerno, and Tom LeRoy. Some people thought that this style of skiing was too dangerous and did not want it to be an Olympic sport. The free-form sport had few rules and wasn't without danger; knee injuries became a common phenomenon for professional freestylers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_style_skiing
Ice hockey tournaments have been staged at the Olympic Games since 1920. The men's tournament was introduced at the 1920 Summer Olympics and was transferred permanently to the Winter Olympic Games programme in 1924. The women's tournament was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics. The Olympic Games were originally intended for amateur athletes, and until 1998, the players of the National Hockey League (NHL) and other men's professional leagues were not allowed to compete. From 1924 to 1988, the tournament started with a round-robin series of games and ended with the medal round. Medals were awarded based on points accumulated during that round. The games of the tournament follow the rules of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), which differ slightly from the rules used in the NHL.
A luge is a small one- or two-person sled on which one sleds supine (face up) and feet-first. Steering is done by flexing the sled's runners with the calf of each leg or exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat. Luge is also the name of the sport which involves racing with such sleds. It is a competition in which these sleds race against a timer.
Short track speed skating (also Shorttrack speedskating) is a form of competitive icespeed skating. In competitions, multiple skaters (typically between four and six) skate on an oval ice track with a circumference of 111.12 m. The rink itself is 60 m by 30 m, which is the same size as an international-sized hockey rink.
Skeleton or tobogganing is a fast winter sliding sport in which an individual person rides a small sled down a frozen track while lying face down, during which athletes experience forces up to 5Gs. It originated in St. Moritz, Switzerland as a spin-off from the popular British sport of Cresta Sledding. While skeleton "sliders" use similar equipment to that of cresta "riders", the two sports are different: while skeleton is run on the same track used by bobsleighs and luge, cresta is run on cresta-specific sledding tracks only. Also, the skeleton sled has no steering or braking mechanism, while cresta sledders use skates on their feet to help steer and brake the sled.
Ski jumping is a sport in which skiers go down an "inrun" with a take-off ramp (the jump), attempting to fly as far as possible. In addition to the length that skiers jump, judges give points for style. The skis used for ski jumping are wide and long (260 to 275 centimetres (100 to 110 in)). Ski jumping is predominantly a winter sport, performed on snow, and is part of the Winter Olympic Games, but can also be performed in summer on artificial surfaces (porcelain or frost rail track on the inrun, plastic on the landing hill).
Snowboarding is a sport that involves descending a slope that is covered with snow on a snowboard attached to a rider's feet using a special boot set into a flexible mounted binding. The development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, surfing and skiing. It was developed in the U.S.A. in the 1960s and the 1970s and became a Winter Olympic Sport in 1998.
Speed skating or speedskating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in traveling a certain distance on skates. Types of speedskating are long track speedskating, short track speedskating and marathon speed skating. In the Olympic Games, long track speedskating is usually referred to as just speedskating, while short track speedskating is known as short track.[1] The ISU, governing body of both ice sports, refers to long track as "speed skating" and short track as "short track speed skating".
What Exact Sporting Events are Taking Place at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics?
Alpine skiing (or "downhill skiing") is the sport of sliding down snow-covered hills on skis with fixed-heel bindings. Alpine skiing can be contrasted with nordic skiing – such as cross-country, ski jumping and Telemark – in which skiers use free-heel bindings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_skiing
Britt Janyk
Michael Janyk
John Kucera
Biathlon usually refers specifically to the winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. Another popular variant is summer biathlon, which combines cross-country running with riflery, and also modern biathlon and biathle, which combine running with swimming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biathlon
Megan Imrie
Zina Kocher
Jean-Philippe Le Guellec
Bobsleigh is a winter sport in which teams make timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sled. The various types of sleds came several years before the first tracks were built in St Moritz, where the original bobsleds were adapted upsized Luge/Skeleton sleds designed by the adventurously wealthy to carry passengers. All three types were adapted from boys delivery sleds and toboggans. Competition naturally followed, and to protect the working class and rich visitors in the streets and byways of St Moritz, hotel owner Caspar Badrutt, owner of the historic Krup Hotel and the later Palace Hotel, built the first familiarly configured 'half-pipe' track circa 1870. It has hosted the sports during two Olympics and is still in use today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobsleigh
Pierre Lueders
Heather Moyse
Lyndon Rush
Cross-Country Skiing is a winter sport in which participants propel themselves across snow-covered terrain using skis and poles. It is popular in many countries with large snowfields, primarily Northern Europe, Canada, Alaska and the upper midwest United States.[1] Skiing can also be done indoor in ski tunnels.
Cross-country skiing is part of the Nordic skiing sport family, which also includes ski jumping, and a combination sport of cross-country skiing and ski jumping called Nordic combined. Free-technique cross-country skiing is also the method of locomotion in the combination sport of Biathlon, which adds rifle marksmanship to skiing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-country_skiing
Perianne Jones
Devon Kershaw
Sara Renner
Curling is a team game with similarities to bowls and shuffleboard, played by two teams of four players each on a rectangular sheet of carefully prepared ice. Teams take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones down the ice towards the target (called the house). Two sweepers with brooms accompany each rock and use timing equipment and their best judgment, along with direction from their teammates, to help direct the stones to their resting place. The complex nature of stone placement and shot selection has led some to refer to curling as "chess on ice."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curling
Cheryl Bernard
Kevin Martin
Figure skating is an Olympic sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform spins, jumps, footwork and other intricate and challenging moves on ice. Figure skaters compete at various levels from beginner up to the Olympic level (senior), and at local, national, and international competitions. The International Skating Union (ISU) regulates international figure skating judging and competitions. Figure skating is an official event in the Winter Olympic Games. In languages other than English, figure skating is usually referred to by a name that translates as "artistic skating".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_Skating
John Mattatall
Scott Moir
Cynthia Phaneuf
Freestyle skiing is an acrobatic form of technical and aerial skiing. It is organized into a number of different disciplines, although there are no impartial authorities for managing the sport internationally.
Freestyle skiing first began to be taken seriously in the 1960s and early 1970s, when it was often known as "hot-dogging." Bob Burns pioneered this style in Sun Valley, Idaho beginning in 1965.[1] In the late 1960s other followers of the style included Wayne Wong, Roger Evans, John Clendenin, Bob Salerno, and Tom LeRoy. Some people thought that this style of skiing was too dangerous and did not want it to be an Olympic sport. The free-form sport had few rules and wasn't without danger; knee injuries became a common phenomenon for professional freestylers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_style_skiing
Chloe Dufour-Lapointe
Maxime Dufour-Lapointe
Stanley Hayer
Ice hockey tournaments have been staged at the Olympic Games since 1920. The men's tournament was introduced at the 1920 Summer Olympics and was transferred permanently to the Winter Olympic Games programme in 1924. The women's tournament was first held at the 1998 Winter Olympics. The Olympic Games were originally intended for amateur athletes, and until 1998, the players of the National Hockey League (NHL) and other men's professional leagues were not allowed to compete. From 1924 to 1988, the tournament started with a round-robin series of games and ended with the medal round. Medals were awarded based on points accumulated during that round. The games of the tournament follow the rules of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), which differ slightly from the rules used in the NHL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hockey_at_the_Olympic_Games
Composed of a Women’s and Men’s Hockey Team!
A luge is a small one- or two-person sled on which one sleds supine (face up) and feet-first. Steering is done by flexing the sled's runners with the calf of each leg or exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat. Luge is also the name of the sport which involves racing with such sleds. It is a competition in which these sleds race against a timer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luge
Jeff Christie
Ian Cockerline
Sam Edney
The Nordic combined is a winter sport in which athletes compete in both cross-country skiing and ski jumping.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_combined
Jason Myslicki
Chanon Pretorius
Wesley Savill
Short track speed skating (also Shorttrack speedskating) is a form of competitive ice speed skating. In competitions, multiple skaters (typically between four and six) skate on an oval ice track with a circumference of 111.12 m. The rink itself is 60 m by 30 m, which is the same size as an international-sized hockey rink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_track_speed_skating
Charles Hamelin
François-Louis Tremblay
Kalyna Roberge
Skeleton or tobogganing is a fast winter sliding sport in which an individual person rides a small sled down a frozen track while lying face down, during which athletes experience forces up to 5Gs. It originated in St. Moritz, Switzerland as a spin-off from the popular British sport of Cresta Sledding. While skeleton "sliders" use similar equipment to that of cresta "riders", the two sports are different: while skeleton is run on the same track used by bobsleighs and luge, cresta is run on cresta-specific sledding tracks only. Also, the skeleton sled has no steering or braking mechanism, while cresta sledders use skates on their feet to help steer and brake the sled.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeleton_%28sport%29
Jeff Pain
Mellisa Hollingsworth
Mike Douglas
Ski jumping is a sport in which skiers go down an "inrun" with a take-off ramp (the jump), attempting to fly as far as possible. In addition to the length that skiers jump, judges give points for style. The skis used for ski jumping are wide and long (260 to 275 centimetres (100 to 110 in)). Ski jumping is predominantly a winter sport, performed on snow, and is part of the Winter Olympic Games, but can also be performed in summer on artificial surfaces (porcelain or frost rail track on the inrun, plastic on the landing hill).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_Jumping
Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes
Eric Mitchell
Trevor Morrice
Snowboarding is a sport that involves descending a slope that is covered with snow on a snowboard attached to a rider's feet using a special boot set into a flexible mounted binding. The development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, surfing and skiing. It was developed in the U.S.A. in the 1960s and the 1970s and became a Winter Olympic Sport in 1998.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowboarding
Jasey-Jay Anderson
François Boivin
Pat Farrell
Speed skating or speedskating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in traveling a certain distance on skates. Types of speedskating are long track speedskating, short track speedskating and marathon speed skating. In the Olympic Games, long track speedskating is usually referred to as just speedskating, while short track speedskating is known as short track.[1] The ISU, governing body of both ice sports, refers to long track as "speed skating" and short track as "short track speed skating".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating
Vincent Labrie
Lucas Makowsky
Denny Morrison